The BRONX:AFRICA exhibit (#BronxAfrica) features contemporary art across disciplines along with Program Ambassador events around the Bronx and beyond. Our borough is home to major and still growing populations from various countries
in Africa. Their vital presence influences and transforms our city. BRONX:AFRICA is a multi-disciplinary exploration of the art, expressions and influences of African cultures, and their impact on the arts as nationals mix and infuse.
BRONX:AFRICA celebrates the influence of contemporary African cultures that strengthens and connects us with the many peoples of African descent, the diaspora, mixed heritage and migration-dispersion that call the Bronx home.ccc

LeRonn Phillip Brooks, Ph.D. is a curator, lecturer and professor of African and African American studies and art history at Lehman College/CUNY and New York University. Dr Brooks is host of Web TV’sCulture Context.

Atim Annette Oton is a Nigerian-born, American and British educated designer. She is the co-owner of Calabar Imports, a 10-year old Brooklyn retail business and the founder of the Creative Side. a co-founder of Black Design News Network and past Huffington Post Black Voices Blogger (she created the series) and of The Pulse of Africa. She writes about Global Africans working in Africa and across the Diaspora and giving an inside view on Africa’s progress, issues on arts and culture, technology and opportunities.

Juanita Lanzo, Longwood Art Gallery Director joined Longwood Arts Project, the visual arts program of the Bronx Council on the Arts, in 2005 as Program Coordinator. She was named Director and Curator in 2008 and has since organized over 40 solo and group exhibitions with hundreds of visual artists and guest curators. These exhibitions focused on gender and race politics, urban and popular culture, migration and the environment artworks created by emerging artists of color and curators. She has served as a panelist for the MTA Arts for Transit, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs’ Percent for Arts Program, Center for the Book Arts and Lower East Side Printshop. Ms. Lanzo is a visual artist who graduated from NYC’s City College/CUNY (2005 MFA) and University of Puerto Rico (1996 BFA) in printmaking, painting and drawing.

PUBLIC PROGRAMMING at Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos

Wednesday February
17: 5:45-8:00pm

BRONX:AFRICA Panel
Discussion - African Fashion, Textiles and Hair

6:00pm: African Fashion and Textiles with Sudie Nallo,
International Coalition of African Fashion and Catherine McKinley, author,
Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World. Moderated by Atim Annette
Oton.

The Bronx Council on the Arts,
working with the AfroCROWD initiative, is hosting a
Black Life Matters
Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Saturday February 27, 2016 as part of the BRONX:AFRICA exhibition at Longwood Gallery, to contribute to articles
on Wikipedia for the national Black WikiHistory Month outreach campaign. The
event will focus on Black
and African History as part of #BRONX
AFRICA.RSVP is required to
attend.Please note that seating is extremely limited.
Please do not RSVP unless you are definitely attending. No food or
beverages allowed in the computer lab.

Ghanaian-born Rachel
Ansong, 2015 BRIO Award winner for poetry, will read from her
award-winning work and will be joined by Gambian-born Muhamadou Salieu Suso, a musician/historian who will
perform on the traditional stringed kora. Their presentations will be
followed by a town hall-style community discussion on immigration and identity,
as part of Bronx Council on the Arts’ Bronx:Africa exhibit and
programs. This is the first in a new series of six upcoming poetry town
halls supported by a grant from the New York Council for the
Humanities.RSVP is required to attend.

Friday, April 29:
6:00-8:00pm

Reclaiming our
Narratives: A Conversation with Nigerian Journalist Chike Frankie Edozien – as
part of PEN World Voices

Bred in
Lagos, Nigeria, Chike Frankie Edozien grew up to become a
journalist and contributed to the 2016 Commonwealth Foundation Creative
Nonfiction Anthology. He’s working on a memoir and has traveled the world
reporting on HIV/AIDS, particularly as affects Africans. A 2008 Kaiser
Foundation fellow for Global Health Reporting, he’ll discuss his work as part of
Bronx Council on the Arts’ Bronx:Africa exhibit and
programs.RSVP is required to attend.

The United Nations has declared the International Decade for People of African Descent - 2015 -2025

Over 200 million people identifying themselves as being of African descent live in the Americas. Many millions more live in other parts of the world, outside of the African continent. The promotion and protection of human rights of people of African descent has been a priority concern for the United Nations.

"Market Symphony” A new audio installation by Nigerian sound and video artist, Emeka Ogboh, the city is his palette — his symphony of sound and his compositions whisk listeners to another time and place. Now on display at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. The exhibition layers of sound from a market in Lagos, Nigeria. The image below shows speakers installed on enamelware trays which are often used in markets.